Headspin happiness death
by SeanTonks
Summary: "What are you thinking?" they ask. It sounds like anxiety. You know that tone, right after coming out. You know the doubt, the tiny earthquake, the stepping on strings hanging in not-thick-enough air. "Iʹm thinking that Iʹm glad that just you came along, Tonks," you feel yourself smiling, thinking thatʹs what honesty might feel like, thatʹs how you spell easy, ever so rarely.


_Show me joy, flower through disarray_

 _Let's destroy, each mistake that we made_

 _Then restore color back to grey_

 _There's no Pride in sharing scars to prove it_

 _Fake it - Bastille_

 _Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing_

 _A flowery band to bind us to the earth,_

 _Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth_

 _Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,_

 _Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways_

 _Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,_

 _Some shape of beauty moves away the pall_

 _Endymion, Book I - John Keats_

Dear History,

I never really asked for sonnet shutters _here let me take the light out you can't focus with all that light let me dim it_

I did not ask to be romanticized or for my loneliness to be brewed into  
hymns.

I asked for scars -

but not _these._

I never asked for the wrong ink on my skin

for the borrowed lines of wisdom their years are asking me to give back

All I wished for was repetition

stability

apart from this molecule

and this

and this

but you bring me instead

a page

smudged ink

mingling scents

it should have been winter when we met but it wasn't

it was sweltering

those kinds of sunsets don't make sense in Muggle London they are like half-finished like out of places like appendixes with no capital letters anywhere no page numbers

 _My pronouns are they/them and if you find that too much of an inconvenience you can try my misgendering hex_

Their hair matches. The sunset, the watercolors, the oranges peeling themselves clean they're only teenagers; the chapped on their lips, the dusk that comes with dullness, the slumber that comes with late July when you're only twenty one and your friends are still alive. Their hair matches their mood and yours is but Neptune, blue and foggy and a ball that feels planetic when it rests upon your throat.

You drop the book shut, you huff. You suffer, you are dead - yet not quite yet.

Dear History,

why do you coerce me in that way?

I would rather stay in my cage do not consist of paper

cuts.

"SCUM! HALF-BREEDS! PINK-HAIRED ABOMINATION! MUTANT SPAWN OF TRAITORS AND FILTHY MUDBLOODS! DISAPPEAR FROM THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS!"

If you were predictable enough to be called Sirius Black you would say they came with a bang.  
You're not what you do, Sirius would tell you fifteen years back. When you were, uh, doing him.

"I'm so sorry for that, agility doesn't run in my blood, I almost failed Stealth and Tracking…"

You and Sirius manage to pull the heavy velvet curtains shut.

"So many "your mom" jokes cross my mind, Padfoot, none of which seems to be fitting the occasion," you murmur.

A choked chuckle escapes Tonks. Your cheeks prickle. You have somehow avoided jokes, connection, making steps, meeting new people other than bosses with a life aspiration to exploit for so long.

"Join us for a drink?" Sirius asks hoarsely, already accio'ing a bottle of old goblin wine from the cellar.

Tonks stifles a choked laugh but seems to avoid your gaze. Blimey. You suddenly feel dizzy, hesitant - _old; that's the word you're looking for. Miserable old sod._ "I think I would rather retire to my bedroom. The meeting lasted a while tonight."

Sirius huffed. "Moony, you're no fun! Hey Tonks, tell him he's no fun!"

They turn to you, hair a coral pixie cut, grin spelling spells like _m-i-s-c-h-i-e-f_

 _\- just imagine meeting on some other universe or era now just imagine that sort of hogwash_

"Will you do us the honor, Mr. Moony?"

You wonder if it's your usual introvertedness and having been away from people for so damn long, yet part of you doesn't feel any eagerness to retire to his bedroom with a dusty Astronomy tome from the Black library. You feel uncomfortable - standing there with your ex-lover, ex-convict, animagus, fugitive best friend in his headquarters of a satanic mansion and his baby genderfluid Metamorphmagus cousin making an entrance, _newest Order member, youngest Auror in the department_. It feels screwed up, so much you want to laugh. It's also that feeling adopted by people more extroverted-than-thou. Like starting over, floating known waters, only hazier, shabbier, always like you've just woken up and try to remember the date.

To remember that you're going grey. You're going nowhere. You're only doing old.

Stagnant.

They become a constant but never a routine. Something about them showing up every day with different hair, pronouns, cheekbones and jawline, and stumbling over the troll leg umbrella stand is exciting - it makes the world throb. You remind yourself you've been alone for so long. You remind yourself you don't remember how to feel. You even try to - self-destructively so - and thankfully fail. You resign. Books are safe. Books smell good, block out other fragrances. Yet they're so unpredictable you almost expect it; their every step is change - so much that it feels constant, safe, even. And it makes you feel like drowning every now and then.

So you read: astronomy and herbology, critical theory applications on mugglology, you nerd out about fighting the dark arts and avoid everything that has to do with lycanthropy and gender. Escapism and denial have incontestably won for over a decade. You know how to do things. Sometimes you just let your clothes stick on your skin and pretend like your collar isn't too tight. You remember before the alteration that came after years of studying and peering in the Forbidden Section of the Library under James' cloak. You remember the years when you had to settle for those amateur compression charms on your chest. Sometimes, even after all these years, you forget that you had to remember again how to draw fulfilling breaths.

So you just watch them try to help Molly in the kitchen and fail miserably. You watch them come up with the most nonsensical, imaginative plans possible, and you watch said plans work. Things chime against your ribs when you go on your first patrol together, yet it's easy as breathing - which doesn't say much, as aforementioned. You watch their jawline be feminine one day, masculine on another. You remember the panic that flooded in your veins when you were twelve and you read about metamorphmagi, when you learnt that you're only born this way, that you could never change your body or appearance at will. That some privileges - most of them - are not yours to claim.

You learned to live with alterations. You adapted like a lizard. You read a lot. Escapism. So they came. So what? So you go on patrol together sometimes. So Sirius' eyes sparkle in a way that twists your guts. So what?

Things are dead. Some things cannot be rekindled. You want to believe that they cannot be replaced either. You bind yourself to be alone every morning like a prayer.

Their hair was pale blue like a cable knit you own, you thought. Then they stumbled on you, spilled some potatoes out the bowl. You work with textures. You keep thinking of cable knit. You wear it to bed. It feels scratchy. It's not like hair. You remember the ginger stubble they sported the other day, looking like a forest elf. Then your cheek. You smell of the potion, the foul smell of earth and sweat and what Earth deems as manliness.

You see them not caring. You press your cheek against your pillow as if you're waiting for skin to go numb. It's tingling with the booze on the breeze of their laughter.

Derelict, gruff. Incomplete. Your skin so thick, so inelastic. You eat chocolate begging to not hurt anyone else with this hurt.

"What are you thinking?" they ask. It sounds like anxiety. You know that tone, right after coming out. You know the doubt, the tiny earthquake, the stepping on strings hanging in not-thick-enough air.

"Iʹm thinking that Iʹm glad that just you came along, Tonks," you feel yourself smiling, thinking thatʹs what honesty might feel like, thatʹs how you spell easy, ever so rarely, you do.

 _"Whatʹs clouding you, Moony-boy?" he asks softly, crawling on the wooden swing, and settling a hand on his knee. He doesn't jerk away at the touch. He kind of craves it. Heʹs so accustomed to it, yet heʹs kind of terrified of it today. This is soft though. This is home. He smells like leather and pipe tobacco. This is them. He leans in._

 _"I hate change," he admits in a strangled voice. "I never know how to deal with it. Itʹs even worse when itʹs happening inside me." It doesn't come out as cringeworthy as it echoes in his head. Maybe it has to do with the receiver. It has to do with home._

 _"Life is change, Moony," Sirius strokes his knee down to his leg and up and sighs heavy and hot on his nape. "You know that philosophic shit better than I do. I know you've been mentally cheating on me with Ferdidah Drough's books." Remus doesn't answer. He feels Siriusʹ thumb under his chin. He turns around. "Hey, what is it?"_

 _"I… I don't feel alright with where we are right now, when it comes to some things. Things… we do - that used to feel okay don't anymore," Remus blurts out, feeling his eyes prickling with tears. "I canʹt keep doing everything that weʹve been doing together, at least until I figure out what works for me and what doesn't."_

 _Siriusʹ smile is honest. "Okay."_

 _"I just don't know how to explain it," he takes a shaky inhale of breath. "One moment I may… like it and the next one I might feel like suffocating. I don't know what is wrong with me anymore."_

 _"Nothing is wrong with the way you feel about things, Moony. This is you, this is your body, your face, your name, how you feel about it all concerns and affects no one else but you."_

 _"I am letting you down."_

 _"You can't let me down. Not if you try, you muzzlehead."_

 _"Iʹm sorry."_

 _"If you apologize one more time, Iʹll hex your skinny werewolf ass into a niffler's bum."_

 _"I just want to be with you Padfoot," his voice breaks into a whisper, "but I need you to start touching me differently."_

 _Sirius pulls him so close that his smile is touching what appears to be growing on Remusʹ lips. "Okay, Moony-boy."_

 _the delta aquarid meteor shower reaches its peak around july 29_

"Spit it out."

Sirius flops onto the couch. You look up from behind his book.

"Spit what out?"

"The reason of your moping. Cʹmon. Tell your loyal dog, Moony-Boy."

You wish he would stop calling you that.

It feels so strange. To have memories for crutches.

"Youʹre moping, Moons. Itʹs all you do. Itʹs like, your hobby. And we love you not despite, but in spite of that."

Your own voice surprises you when it leaves your mouth. Your honesty even more.

"I feel very uncomfortable when I'm being dishonest to people."

Sirius arches his eyebrows, lighting his pipe and taking a long drag. Shuts his eyes and throws his head back on the couch. "I thought as much. What are you feeling guilty about this time, Moonsters?"

"Tonks has disclosed their identity to me. I haven't."

"Everybody in the Order knows you're a werewolf."

There's a pause - you find the word _pregnant_ so misplaced. "It's not that I'm talking about," you mutter in a wooden tone.

Sirius just arches an eyebrow. You feel borderline upset. You want to blame someone but there's only yourself in your cage, being stupid and pathetic as you are. "This is some top quality cowardly behavior on my part."

Sirius sits up, interest suddenly sparked. "Pray do elaborate. How not disclosing every tiny detail about your personality and background to a person you've just met is cowardice?"

"No. Itʹs… I want them to know. I want people who understand to know. I just fear that she might not understand. I'm so used to people not understanding, yʹknow."

"I do," Sirius says, softened. "And I would dread having to spend a day in your head, Moony. I really would." Itʹs as tender as sarcasm can be.

"Some people would say the same about your head."

"Iʹm not some people. Iʹm an exiled Black and so are they. Don't underestimate them. You know better when it comes to the white sheep of the Black family tree."

Remus cannot help but smile.

 _up to 20 rather faint meteors radiate  
each hour from the southern half of aquarius_

You like to remember it as a buzz. They are so kind as to break an ashtray and the silence simultaneously. Itʹs the unexpectedness of a life confession, given the time and place, rather than the content of it. They don't gasp. They don't grimace – no drama, just some good ol' redefined breaking. With a tendency of introducing him to firsts.

Reparo is right, retrospectively speaking.

"Okay," they smile.

You check things off lists - some would call it a coping mechanism. It's how you've gotten through weeks - years. Tracking days till the full moon, tracing bloody circles, their ceasing. Counting minutes until potions kick in, organizing everything into neat little boxes. Survivors and gone, details about students, their strengths and weaknesses, books you liked and those you finished simply to satisfy your perfectionism. People that seem suspicious. Admirable traits, good deeds, job interviews going silent. It's what you do: watching, classifying, counting days, taking mental notes. It doesn't surprise you when your brain starts playing Scavenger's Hunt with Tonks' actions and words. It happens with most people you meet who leave you feeling something more than indifference.

First you start noticing their Hufflepuff traits; always willing to help, whether that means tirelessly sharing their father's knowledge on Muggle electricity plugs with Arthur, or kindly providing Molly with more smashed plates than she needs. Working themselves - tirelessly, they make it look like at first, to utter exhaustion, you later find out - to the point of making their cheerful self a color-changing caffeinated bouncy ball of anxiety. So excited with the possibility of fighting at every Order discussion - out of loyalty instead of lust of power or mere adrenaline rushes.

They are a goal oriented punk, getting burnt out from being there too much. Extroverted, showing genuine interest in every tiny thing people wish to share, morphing into Dung whenever the twins ask for their help to distract for a prank, always eager to help Ginny with what from a distance looks like dating stuff. Molly has reached out to you for gender stuff concerning her daughter, yet Ginny herself never did. You're sure none of the kids know much about you, yet you can almost say with certainty that Ginny has been discussing that with Tonks too. It's not like Tonks has been hiding anything. They obviously know their magical queer history and they've read their Sappho Chadwick poetry alright. They seem to be kind of into everything.

For some reason it does not surprise you that you ended up having so much in common with a genderfluid metamorphmagus who is also an Auror, never missed a Weird Sisters concert during their NEWTs year, and finds lime and neon purple to be a good idea when put together in an outfit.

You find out you can talk for hours together. Defence Against the Dark Arts is your go-to-subject, having shaped both your lives, both academically and practically. However, they've also read Muggle literature and you owe your musical education to rebel with a cause teenage Sirius Black, who basically invented Goblin Grunge back in his time.

You rarely ever discuss identities, but you can't recall the last time you felt so comfortable with someone squeezing so many words in such little time, many of them about the ever-ill-fitting stream of experiences you had to be shoved into, just a different set of them.

Still, discussing your lives remains comfortable. They are always interested, nimbly shooting questions at him about your friends, your family, lycanthropy, your teaching year at Hogwarts, somehow always managing not to cross any boundaries. They're also excitable enough when it comes to speaking about themselves. You take things in - you start distinguishing. This hearty laugh goes with their Charlie Weasley Hogwarts memories, and all the sneaking in the kitchens. The fierceness in both sarcasm and a hint of admiration comes when they talk about Andromeda's remnants of well-mannered pretense.

One day they disclose that all they ever wished for was to be part of a big friend group where everyone would have each other's backs. At first it takes you by surprise - imagining them being colorful, loud, and always in trouble with authority - in one word, cool - but then you remember how mean kids can be. Then you start putting the pieces together, noticing how their eyes glint when they're publicly acknowledged as part of the Order, and you watch their anxiety when they try to prove themselves worthy - though they're much more skilled than most wizards and witches you've ever met.

Your catch their eye when the meeting's over and everyone's flicking wands to tidy up before dinner. Their hair has changed to turquoise - you feel like swallowing a smile, wondering, then letting it go. You receive a light punch on his shoulder along with a playful huff when you mutter some compliment about their idea for the Harry mission. You're left smiling over the clutter of a bowl falling, Molly's yelling and the sound of the twins apparating. You touch your shoulder and brush it off through the chaos before heading to the kitchen to help.

There's this horrible new lens through which you start filtering what you see - you'd take Mad Eye's eye any day over that. You are well acquainted with that lens - it was there twenty years ago and it coloured everything in shades of leather, tattoos, smoke, mahogany, grass. It's as if you've started translating life as we know it through the lens of Tonks-moments.

Harry is standing gobsmacked at the top of the staircase. Tonks' _Lumos_ illuminates the Dursley corridor - and the smooth surface along their cheeks and jaw. Eyes twinkle a bit. Hair could chuckle if senses were inverted - bubblegum pink. Mad-Eye is talking of buttocks. You wonder what they're thinking about, if they're young the way people tend to be young, if the Order should apologize on its behalf for buttocks, for misunderstanding, if you should go ahead and apologize for the mess in your head, for looking so old and worn but never really having gotten past the point of awkward, lanky, lonely boy, scarred, a misfit for your mass-of-shapes-and-tangled-history of a body.

Short-listed for the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition translates into brilliant, translates into a constant flush from the soft spot underneath your ears that stretches all the way under your fingernails, you think it might reduce your bones into ash. Mis-naming them means shame, always silently calling yourself out for being a half-hypocrite, you hate the living shit out of yourself sometimes.

Dinner at Grimmauld and Harry demanding to know the truth means fierce and stubborn, means repetition but not quite.

You wonder how they escaped the Black tradition of celestial onomatology. You remember schism. You wonder what she hates about her mother, in the realm of and despite the genealogical barricades lifted.

They're so see-through you have trouble picturing the night sky as a clear map anymore.

You catch your lips being way too connected with your cheeks, muscles rediscovered. You drink and laugh in the dimly lit living room at Grimmauld Place when everyone but Sirius is asleep and Tonks barges in with double left feet chaos after a night shift or Order duty. They make it easy, making you easy. You sometimes forget of your page fever, stop the scanning and treat your books with neglect. You catch yourself leaning forward in your seat, further into the company. Their laugh is tremendous, snorty and choky and all of the excess in the best way possible, it's earthquake which you avoid translating into "feeling too strongly".

You swallow a chuckle when you see them morphed as an old hippie lady, ready to take the children at King's Cross. The ride on the Knight Bus makes your insides vibrate, you wonder whether there are fossils of anticipation encircling your existence like long forgotten comets. Is that what having feelings felt like the first time? Of course not. That was a thing. That happened. That scarred and rebirthed you. It's the facts. It's history. It's tattooed on your lungs like your first smoke, too much eaten wood. Now you can't. It's not like that. You're old, stagnant, close to full moon. Too many war remnants on your chest to lie normally on your back again without weight digging holes through the mattress.

On your way back you stop for a drink at the Three Broomsticks. You listen as they rant about work, about their parents, you translate the universe through the filter of air between you.

Autumn is the calmest you get even though your sleep is a battlefield.

No one could have ever convinced you that Tonks would be such a good partner-in-silence. As the pavements get maple colored with leaves and the weather chilly, breathing eerily on the windows, Tonks starts spending more and more evenings filling in Ministry paperwork, sprawled over the carpet like Crookshanks while you read on the armchair. Sometimes you have to work together for an Order matter. There's been a lot of shifts to have to cover together recently.

Sirius seems more cheerful when his cousin is around, and now with Harry off to school, that's more than appreciated. The only noise appears when he's in the picture, luring Tonks (not with much effort) into a round of Explosive Cards. There are also the frequent occurrences of them tripping over objects. You've developed a habit of casually throwing healing charms around before they do. It upsets them in a way that you try your hardest not to decipher as _cute_. You sodding show-off.

Then you make everyone hot chocolate or coffee. Sometimes Molly does. Now that the kids are away she needs people to coddle.

One rainy night you're killing time by the fire. They huff over a case. You end up discussing Umbridge, and your tiny furry ickle problem called unemployability. They are livid. Their hair spiky and their eyes bright.

"They'd hex people to death, these gits, to afford to be half of who you are, Remus Lupin," they murmur huskily. Their hand comes to cup yours. It's warm and your circulation bad.

It's not pity.

Your grandpa clock of an organ forgets not to derail.

Your cheeks prickle. It's the fireplace, you armor up against your judgment.

Pathetic.

They discuss Greyback and his later activity at the meeting. Your inner organs feel uncommunicative, wrapped in tin foil. You gradually freeze. You will never be able to forget his breath of death, his lust, the horror, the pain stabbing venom close to your carotid. You think of Sirius, of Molly, of Tonks, how restless they look. You waltz with skeletal what-ifs, unwanted, reeking. You think of Lily, James, your mother. Endless needles, your skin will never be pierced just once, just regularly. Always a bad omen, always ill-fitting.

Your bed makes you stiff with nightmares. And you, who thought you could breathe for a while, acknowledge the rattle that echoed strangely like anticipation in your ribcage.

You are problematically wired, handed wrong to your parents and mispronounced, a lump, all lumps.

Curdling sweat, cowardice, never having a choice, stomach cramps, running away from pallid discs that claim to symbolize, all lump.

You can't do this to them. You can't let anyone - anything that is like you to go near them, because if they get hurt you'll have to claw the universe in shreds. Not the moon lump, not the predators, not you.

They are baffled. At first they blame it on a harsh transformation. They try to talk to you, wondering if it was something they said. You avoid them, even let them believe it. Shielding them is more important.

And the harsh transformation comes, like it always does. It leaves you pulsating with pain, ripped apart and dysphoric, a lump. You avoid mirrors. You avoid your soft sweater that makes you feel like contact is happening. You choose scratchy, itchy, unpleasant stimulation, forcing you to remember of body. You avoid them until they stop looking for you. You tell Dumbledore it's time to go underground. You long to become that which is a map which is folded and abandoned and placed on the nighttable of those disappointed of seeking.  
*

The weather is freezing and you'd rather be inside, where at least you would be able to feel your nose, fingers and toes again, albeit feeling in general is what you've been trained to do to an extent as limited as possible. Yet you do not fail to notice that is is rather distracting. Thinking of how hesitant your pocket feels against your gloveless icicle of a hand, of how little you will once again be able to offer to all the people who have been doing nothing but giving you. At moments like these, walking by 2nd Hand Brooms and thinking of your fraying Cleansweep, you wonder whether _bitter_ is what people have come to think of you when they meet you. There are other words too, but you absently smile them away. Impressions have long ago stopped impressing you.

You pass by the Apothecary and you can't help feeling grateful for Dumbledore who's insisted on supplying Severus with your Wolfsbane ingredients. Again, linguistics. You wonder if grateful is a word more functional than parasitic. You live with Sirius in the house he's hated more than anything in this life, going underground, spying on those you were never sure whether you wanted to confront or to befriend. All the werewolves you know do not celebrate Christmas. You momentarily muse on why exactly wizards do in first place, your mental eye browsing through dusty shuffling History pages. You wonder what gift the average werewolf would like, then remind yourself you're the last person who could afford generalizations. You wonder what gift Dumbledore would like, then you remember - socks. Your mind is all papyrus, calculating swiftly. You pass by Amanuensis Quills, the Madam Malkin's, half-cackle at Sirius' suggestion you refresh your wardrobe for something more Fluffy Chic.

Diagon Alley is, as always, exaggeratedly colorful against the overcast sky. Madam Primpernelle's illuminates shocking pink - you choke at the absurdity of the way you think of Tonks, the last person who would need (or even give a sickle) for such a shop. Every broomstick on the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies is wrapped in swishing tinsel, and animated woodland golden creatures are marching in the window of Wiseacre's. Magically enhanced Christmas carols are floating in the air, and dwarves dressed as Santa's Elves are probably paid cakecrumbs to offer sweets as an advertisement technique out on the street, making you furious with the quite relatable feeling of exploitation by wizard corporates.

You've got a headache, you're hungry, you need chocolate, you have no idea what to get anyone apart from Ginny who you're sure will love your old Gertrude Chillgrave's Horror Anthology, Arthur who's getting his very own Muggle sewing kit that you found at a Muggle junk store, and Kingsley who you know appreciates chocolate cauldrons almost just as much as you do.

It's even more specific than that. The cloudy London sky is spelling ou e, it's reminding you _don't hope,_ it so comfortingly used to display your life route linear, yet now the map consists of smudged lines, like a wool ball Crookshanks is messing with. You need some time to untangle, some time to clear your head of thoughts so invasive and disorienting. You choose warmth peer into what you know best: the Second-Hand Bookshop next to Fortescue's, skipping Flourish and Blotts completely. It's even darker in there, and barely warmer than outside, the only source of foggy white light being a narrow window at the back.

The shop consists of several corridors with bookshelves that reach the low ceiling, and smells like it should: wood, paper, tea leaves and moths. You nod to the old shopkeeper and smile at her dog before sliding in corridor 1, alphabetically surrounding yourself with Astronomy, Arithmancy and Baking. You think of baking something for your Order colleagues, and immediately cringe at the idea of daring to be measured against Molly.

Still, you're immediately much more in your element. You move to the next corridor, noticing an excellent Defence series that Harry would love, and dreading the idea of affording it alone. Maybe you should ask Sirius, no matter how humiliating that sounds. It's for Harry.

You're inhaling deeply in the familiar scent of books, just starting to cheer up and feeling at your element, when it visits: vibrant, fruits and spice at the same time - cherries, pumpkin pie, figs, what is it? You could never quite grasp it. Your heart jolts in your chest, you're awkward and clammy and full of regrets. You consider storming out, but they've already made their way round the bookcase at the end of the corridor, meeting you where Divination and Emancipation of Non-Wizard Creatures meet diagonally.

"Hey," they say surprised, instantly looking every bit as uncomfortable as you do - yet it's a completely different kind of uncomfortable; the one demanding questions instead of trying to obscure the answers from themselves - _have you been ignoring me? was it something i said? why did you suddenly stop staying up late with Sirius and Goblin Wine at Grimmauld with me? were you born a jerk, or were you turned into one? what's your issue with claiming responsibility, or not claiming it on time?_

"Tonks." Their features are feminine today - small, smooth chin, pale pink eyebrows, simultaneously pale and rosy. Marshmallow coat, reindeer and innuendo knitted pink on sweater too huge, a floof of pink hair under a hideous neon beanie.

"Surprised, are you?" they grin, trying to balance a shitload of bags and packets in their arms.

"Didn't expect to find you here."

"Is it because I don't read? I bet I'd kick your bum in a Queer Wix History pop quiz anytime," they quirk an eyebrow.

"Of course you read, Tonks, I didn't mean…" you meant _I didn't expect to see you at the second-hand,_ and right now you need to swallow that bitterness and pettiness and self-victimization and choke on it, because they are the last person in your life who deserves all that.

"So, d'you find anything good?" they point with their eyes at the books against which you are resting, sheltering yourself.

" _Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts,_ I think Harry would love it," you share hoarsely and it's immediate, they bend to see the book and half their bags go flying. You are tacky, ridiculous, Muggle cinema cliche extraordinaire as you both immediately land on the floor, picking up singing socks and candy boxes. Their cheeks are flushed pomegranates, they probably wish to kick you in the crotch right now. You'd quite voluntarily kick yourself in the crotch as well. The only thing keeping you back is the reminder that there never existed a universe where this was gonna work from the very beginning. You are doing the right thing simply because there is no ground for experimentation. You doubt this would be even felt right; you're too broken for feelings, too fat of a past, still getting over it, still sweeping the ashes as you cohabitate with what took so long to die, in a house no one wants to reanimate. You are wood not yet paper; no possibility of being rewritten.

They walk out of the bookshop even though they most obviously have not completed their purchase. You stand outside. The cold wind slaps your face.

"What did I fuck up, Remus?" they ask, protectively hugging their packages and tapping their boot nervously on the damp cobblestone.

"You never fucked anything up, Tonks," you rough out, exhaling mist, avoiding their look, horrified at the newly discovered hurt you will loathe yourself for inflicting. "I'm just… I'm not good with people."

"Seriously?" they ask, anxiety palpable in their sharp tone. "You stopped talking to me, you avoided eye contact at meetings! You…" their voice breaks and you wish to kick a brick, "you changed patrol! Hestia told me. You started hating me and I don't know… I don't know if I've offended you somehow, and…"

You snap back into reality, touching their gloved wrist to ground them. "Tonks," you mutter, "Tonks, I could never hate you. What are you talking about?" You sigh. They have every right to feel that way. They have every right to hate you. They don't understand. "It's… it's more complicated than that." You raise your eyes to hate them. Inquiring eyes, glimmering wet, a punch in the gut, an overflow of misplaced warmth. "I've been... busy. The underground takes the best of you. I couldn't manage most things during the past month. I'm sorry."

Tonks huffs. "Listen, our bums are gonna freeze the fuck off. Let me buy you a hot chocolate somewhere where the Yeti wouldn't find pleasant?"

There is a pregnant pause that feels like a million walls to climb. You exhale, your shoulders easing down. "Hot chocolate sounds great, actually."


End file.
